


Lapis Creative Companion

by wheel_pen



Series: Loose Gems [44]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Creative companion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-19 03:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29619834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: Unfinished. Inspired by X-Men First Class, Erik is an engineering exec coming off a bad break-up who wants someone waiting at home, but without the emotional commitment. He makes a connection with a creative companion to be named Lapis (Charles Xavier).
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Series: Loose Gems [44]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/251902
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	Lapis Creative Companion

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe.

Never trust a place that had only cheap scotch. Erik didn’t even finish the rest of the drink, just left it on the bar as he swiveled to face the rest of the room, assessing. Was this a waste of his time? He’d put so much effort in already it seemed foolish to stop now, but at work that was called the sunk cost fallacy. On the other hand, if he went home this early Emma and Azazel would ream him out, and he didn’t feel like dealing with that tonight.

He checked the app on his phone, refreshing his memory of the companions who were supposedly compatible with him based on all the tests and interviews he’d submitted to. He had the basics memorized, of course. Numbers 3, 5, 11, 18, and 23 were who he was looking for, and he scanned the room for them. Number 18 was a blond woman in a pink dress, talking animatedly to another man, but Erik didn’t let that stop him from approaching. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to; he’d been told before that he could be very intimidating when he loomed silently, and within moments the other man politely excused himself and hurried away.

The blond woman, barely more than a teenager, gulped her champagne like it was water. “Oh, you’re one of _those_ types,” she said with a knowing smirk.

“Yes,” Erik agreed. “Does that bother you?”

She made a show of checking the letter affixed not-very-stylishly to his lapel. “You’re on my list, F, so it must not.” She was flirty in a playful, light-hearted way. “Can I call you… Frederick?”

Erik smirked. “Only if it’s with a K,” he shot back.

“Frederick with a K,” she agreed with a grin.

“Do I just call you Eighteen?” he asked. “Really?”

She rolled her eyes in shared mockery of the agency that had set this up. “You can call me Eighty for short,” she suggested.

Erik started to relax a little. Maybe this wouldn’t be so pointless after all. “So tell me about your hobbies, Eighty,” he requested.

“Well, I sing, I love to sing,” she replied enthusiastically. “And I play a few instruments, like guitar and piano. I’m learning more.” Erik nodded; he’d heard samples already, she seemed to have some talent, and a style he enjoyed. “And I write my own songs, too,” she went on. “What do you do?”

“I work,” he deflected shortly. This was not about him, he felt. “A lot. Can you keep yourself occupied during the day, with your music?”

“Well, sure,” she claimed. “I can write and play for hours. But surely you don’t work _all_ the time,” she insisted, toying with his collar to draw him closer. “What do you like to do for fun?” He didn’t answer right away. “Travel? Entertain?” she suggested hopefully. “I’m a big hit at parties.”

“No parties, I’m afraid,” he admitted, and she tried to conceal her disappointment. “I have a house in the suburbs, that’s where you’d be most of the time. I work in the city.”

Eighty tossed back the rest of her champagne with a flare that made Erik fear for his liquor cabinet. “You wanna dance, Frederick?” she asked, indicating the small dance floor attended by a jazz quartet.

“Love to, Eighty.”

They joined a handful of other couples in the space, Eighty cozying right up to him comfortably. Erik wasn’t sure how he felt about that—he expected sex to be part of the deal, but he wasn’t convinced of how discerning she was yet. Not that Erik usually had trouble getting attention when he wanted it.

“So what do you work _at_?” she persisted. “Come on. Advertising? Finance?”

“I’m an engineer,” Erik finally told her. It wasn’t a secret.

Eighty made a little face and Erik knew she was going to make a joke. “An engineer, huh? You don’t look like an engineer to _me_.” She squeezed his biceps suggestively. “You work out a lot for an engineer.”

Engineers were nerdy, he got it, and he smiled thinly. “What else do you do? For your inputs.”

Her eyes widened comically. “Inputs? Wow, you’ve really studied this. Studied my specs, I guess, like an engineer!” She giggled at her own joke, while Erik waited for the answer. “Well, I listen to a lot of music, of course. I _love_ going to live shows—you know, just little coffeeshop gigs, catch people before anyone else knows about them. That’s how I met most of my friends, we like to just get together and hop from show to show on the weekends.”

“Oh really?” Erik affected being interested in that, but really he was thinking he wasn’t keen on his companion being out of the house so much without him. And no way was he suffering through open mic night at a coffeeshop. “Do you have a lot of friends?”

“Oh yeah, some of us go back years,” Eighty assured him. “Some are companions, some aren’t. When we get together we’re, like, the biggest music nerds _ever_. My friend Debbie is a companion and her sponsor lets us hang out at his house and listen to obscure records all night long.”

There was a hint there, but Erik refused to take it. “Her sponsor named her Debbie?” he asked instead.

Eighty laughed gaily. It was a nice laugh, but maybe a little loud. “I know, right? I don’t think he gave it much thought. I think his mom came up with it.” Her eyes flashed at him. “What name would you give _me_?”

Erik did not care much about that part, but it was apparently a major component of the process. “I don’t know, I’d have to ask my mother.” Eighty laughed again.

“Come on,” she insisted.

“Mm, I don’t know,” Erik repeated, not liking the topic. Online research indicated companions placed a lot of value on the reasoning behind a sponsor’s name choice. Erik would’ve rather just called her whatever she was used to, whatever the last person did, but that was considered very tacky. He looked her over, hoping for inspiration. Energy, quick darting movements, easily distracted by things around her—she’d already said hi to three other people—“Maybe some kind of bird?” he suggested.

He could see this wasn’t going to go over well. “A bird? Really.” She pretended to give this serious thought. “You know, maybe as the creative companion, _I_ should do the naming.”

Erik laughed a little, conceding this, even as he felt uncomfortable with the teasing. “I wish you would,” he assured her. Was it _good_ uncomfortable or _bad_ uncomfortable? Magda always said he was too uptight.

“So you don’t entertain at all,” Eighty repeated, seemingly stuck on this. “So who comes to your suburban bungalow, then? You must have friends. Kids? Are you married?”

Those were reasonable questions about the situation she might find herself in. “I’m not married, no kids,” Erik promised. “I have some staff… Um, my mother’s around a lot. She would love to hear you sing,” he added positively.

“Oh, that’s sweet,” Eighty replied, but without making a joke, which made Erik suspect she was merely being polite. “Serious question here, Frederick,” she went on.

“Yes?”

“So, I’ve always wanted to record some of my songs,” Eighty explained. “I mean, of course I record them, but professionally, at a real recording studio. I don’t suppose you have one in your home?”

Erik appreciated the straightforward inquiry. “Not currently, but I could see putting one in, if we had a contract.” This time Eighty’s eyes widened in genuine surprise and joy, which Erik liked to see. “But you’d need a professional sound engineer, wouldn’t you?” He wasn’t opposed to spending money to make his companion comfortable, he just wanted it to be used effectively.

This was not a problem for Eighty, however. “Oh, I’ve got tons of friends who are sound engineers,” she claimed. “Would you really do that? It would be so awesome! Everyone would love hanging out there.”

 _Erik_ would not love everyone hanging out there. “What does it mean when one of the people in white waves at me?” he asked Eighty, nodding at a woman watching them from the wall. Or possibly she had waved at someone else.

Eighty rolled her eyes. “That’s a facilitator,” she explained. “I guess she thinks we’re monopolizing each other, and ought to circulate more.” She sounded like she would enjoy defying this, but Erik was ready for a break and stepped back.

“I don’t want to get you in trouble,” he said gallantly.

“I don’t mind a little trouble.”

Erik gave her one of his too-many-teeth smiles, which people said could be either charming or unnerving. “Perhaps I can talk to you later,” he offered, making it sound like a promise.

“Well, alright,” Eighty agreed. Her gaze darted away to find the next possibility, then back to Erik. “Nice to meet you, Frederick.”

“You too, Eighty.”

He let her go on her way and went back to the bar, where he stuck with a club soda. She had seemed vivacious and fun—clearly an excellent person to hit the clubs with, take to parties. If Erik had time to do that sort of thing, which he didn’t. He wouldn’t mind coming home to her… if she stayed upbeat and not pesky… but would _she_ enjoy being at home? When he didn’t allow her friends free rein over his property.

Well, one down, four more to go.

The problem, apparently, was that Erik was boring. He’d never thought of himself as boring before, but that was the distinct impression he was getting. He’d been upfront with the interviewers that he needed a companion who was comfortable with the quiet life, but perhaps they hadn’t realized how quiet that actually was?

3 was an artist. He drew cartoons mainly, funny, clever cartoons that he published online. That was evidently a thing people did. Erik did not get any of his pop culture references at all, which was unfortunate as half of his speech seemed to consist of movie quotes.

5 designed fashion, jewelry, and “interiors.” Her creations seemed pretty, even if Erik didn’t get the same deep, soulful meaning from them that she did. She struggled to restrain her horror when she realized that despite how much Erik traveled for work, he had never visited any of the museums, art galleries, or historic sites she knew of. Nor was he particularly interested in doing so, but he told her she could go on her own, while he was working nearby. Somehow that didn’t seem to satisfy her.

11 was a gourmet chef. Great! Erik liked to eat good food. They bonded over the cheap scotch at the bar and traded fancy restaurant stories. Erik was willing to remodel his kitchen to better suit a chef’s standards. Then it came out that Erik kept kosher, and so did his mother, who was basically his only guest. Who _were_ all these people who constantly had dinner parties and cocktail parties and whatever? Maybe they only existed in home decorating magazines, the kind 5 liked to read.

23, Erik could not find. He was a young brunette, and Erik had scanned the party for him with no luck. Maybe while Erik had been listening to people wax eloquent about shows he’d never seen and artists he’d never heard of, someone else had offered 23 a contract already and taken him off the market. Erik thought about asking a facilitator for assistance, but then decided he just wanted to be alone for a few minutes and wandered out the back door to the garden. The moon cast silvery light across the statues and hedges, shadows exaggerating every feature, and as Erik idly followed the path around a corner, something moved suddenly in the darkness.

“Oh, sorry!” said a slightly breathless voice, belonging to a young man in a tuxedo. “Sorry, you just startled me.”

Erik tried to calm his own heartbeat. “It’s alright. I just wasn’t expecting to see anyone out here.” He frowned in the poor lighting. “Are you 23?” he asked. The moonlight bleached the young man’s skin, making freckles stand out that Erik hadn’t noticed in his photo. When he turned fully towards him, his brilliant blue eyes caught a shaft of light and Erik knew he was same person. “I’ve been looking for you.” He didn’t mean it to come out so harsh, enough to make 23 bite his lower lip nervously.

“I, um—” he began to explain, though Erik could see he didn’t have a good excuse lined up. “Oh, you’re F,” he redirected. “You’re on my list.” With that he smiled brightly, _almost_ convincing Erik he was sincere.

Erik smirked and dropped down on a stone bench nearby. “I’m hiding out from the party,” he admitted baldly. “I take it you’re doing the same.”

“Yes,” 23 confessed, taking the other end of the bench with a sigh. “I don’t really like parties.”

“I really don’t like them, either,” Erik agreed. “Why don’t they have some other way to meet people? Like, I don’t know—”

“Something one on one,” 23 finished, and Erik nodded, exactly. “That’s what _I_ wanted to know, but they said that wasn’t popular enough.” Erik rolled his eyes at foolish management decisions. “So it was either attend a party, or do one of the activity groups—”

“Oh G-d,” Erik groaned in sympathy, thinking of the options he’d been offered there. “Hiking? Bowling?”

“Paper crafts,” 23 added. “I should’ve picked that one. At least at the end I’d have an origami crane.”

Erik laughed, and the boy smiled, a real smile this time. “You’re a writer, aren’t you?” he recalled. He’d read a couple short stories given as samples—they were weird but funny, talking dragons and spaceships and so forth. However, 23 tensed at the mention of it.

“I—well, I ought to tell you that I’m probably not going to be on the market much longer,” he blurted awkwardly, and Erik felt a stab of disappointment—this was the most comfortable he’d been all evening.

“Why’s that?” he asked levelly. “You think you’ll be offered a contract soon?” Handsome, talented, funny—Erik could see why he’d be snapped up quickly.

“No,” 23 replied uneasily. Erik waited expectantly, and the young man sighed and rubbed a tired hand over his face. “I keep refusing contracts, and the agency’s probably going to drop me soon, and then I’ll have to—” For a moment he looked hopeless. “Get a job, I suppose.” His red lips twisted into a mirthless smirk that Erik didn’t like. “Like everyone else. So,” he added briskly, “if you want to go back to the party I completely understand.”

Erik studied him thoughtfully. “Why do you keep refusing contracts?” he wanted to know. His brief research—actually the random articles Azazel sent him—suggested that behind the scenes the lives of creative companions could be overdramatic and tawdry.

Indeed, 23 looked like he wished Erik hadn’t asked. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say all that,” he responded instead, turning on the charm again. “I’m not very good company, really. Have you met Eighteen? She’s lovely.”

Erik would not be dissuaded, however. “Eighteen _is_ lovely,” he agreed, “but not really to my taste. I doubt I’m going to offer anyone a contract—this whole thing has been a waste of my time.” He didn’t mean to rant, but it was hard to stop once he got started. “This is the best conversation I’ve had tonight, so why don’t we just enjoy it while it lasts?”

23 stared at him for a moment, then saw that he was sincere and relaxed, lips quirking into a half-smile. “That’s a good plan,” he decided. “Better than _my_ plan, which was explaining to the head facilitator why I was bailing early, then going home alone and drinking quite a lot.”

Erik nodded knowingly. “My housekeeper would skin me alive if I came home this early,” he agreed. “Of course, she _also_ won’t be happy I’m not offering a contract to anyone, but I just didn’t feel like any of them were a good fit. It’s too big a commitment to go with ‘good enough.’”

23’s blue eyes widened. “Yes, exactly,” he agreed emphatically. “I talk to people, and I start ticking off all the things they expect me to do that I don’t like, and I just think, no, I can’t do it, I don’t care if it’s only a year—”

“A year is forever, when you’re miserable.” Erik knew that from personal experience. “Especially living in the same house.”

“Yes,” 23 agreed quietly, as if he too spoke from experience. His gaze was faraway. “It’s just—it’s terrifying sometimes, being a companion.”

Erik’s eyes widened. “Terrifying?” What kind of situations had this kid been in? The agency was supposed to check up on them—

23 waved off his darker thoughts. “I mean, just, the unknown,” he tried to describe. “Putting your trust in someone you don’t know, going to live with them… I just want to write!” He sounded rather embarrassed by this, when Erik thought it was the _point_ of a creative companion. “I want to write and read and watch the telly—those are my inputs—and not have to worry about anything else.” Erik felt something unusual flutter in his chest and realized it was hope. “No parties, no traveling, no household drama, no babysitting—I mean, I like kids, but I don’t want to be the nanny—”

“What about having sex?” Erik interrupted, sounding perhaps a bit too intense. 23 stopped talking and gazed at him, as if slowly realizing the conversation had shifted.

“Sex is a possibility,” he finally allowed. “I would prefer to get to know the person a bit first.”

“That seems reasonable,” Erik judged. He was no long so relaxed, but rather felt a distinct sense of urgency, as if the perfect thing might slip through his fingers any second, and he leaned forward, closer to the boy. “Do you have a lot of friends?”

23 huffed out a dry laugh at this idea. “No,” he said. “I’m not very sociable. I don’t have any close family, either.” He sounded wistful as he said this—Erik knew his mother would eat him up with a spoon.

“I work a lot,” Erik told him. “Can you keep yourself occupied while I’m gone?” He felt he knew the answer to that already.

“Certainly,” 23 assured him. Erik sensed he was starting to get excited too, now, but he’d been burned before, it seemed, and was warier.

“I have a house in the suburbs, I work in the city,” Erik went on, spitting the words out quickly now. “Housekeeper, driver, minimal staff. My mother visits a lot. We keep kosher. I’m an engineer—” All of these things had seemed important to the other candidates.

“Is it safe?” 23 asked unexpectedly. “The house. People around for help, good security—”

“Yes,” Erik promised, intrigued by the question. “Yes, it’s a very good neighborhood, and there’s a fence around the property—I would be willing to add things for you, if you didn’t feel secure enough,” he offered. After all, he’d been wiling to shell out for a gourmet kitchen or a recording studio.

“I’d like someone to go with me, if I went out,” 23 suggested tentatively. “Not that I’d go out much, unless you sent me on errands—”

“You’re not there to run errands, you’re there to write,” Erik asserted, which was exactly what 23 wanted to hear. His blue eyes shown warm in the pale light.

“Would you—my stories,” 23 said haltingly. “What would you do with them?”

Erik wasn’t sure he understood the question. “Nothing, they’re yours. What do you mean?” He wasn’t going to _burn_ them or anything.

“I mean, you’d want to read them?” 23 clarified.

“Yes, I was hoping to,” Erik replied. “I liked what I read so far.” It worked just as well if he didn’t, however.

“Would you let anyone else read them?”

Erik sensed some history behind this question. “I’ll let you decide,” he promised, which the boy seemed relieved about. “You don’t like showing them to people?” That was refreshingly modest—he realized the other candidates had been a bit show-offy.

“I just—I like to keep them private,” 23 tried to explain. Clearly he felt this wasn’t good enough reasoning, or had been told so in the past.

Erik shrugged. “If you like. You have to feel comfortable, don’t you?” he reasoned. “To produce creative energy.”

23 smirked dryly. “You’d be surprised how many people forget that,” he noted. “You’re not married, no kids?” he surmised, and Erik shook his head. “Can I ask, why do you want a creative companion? You don’t want arm candy or a co-host, you’re not trying to profit from my work, it sounds like your house is in good repair—”

Erik snorted. “Did someone try to use you to _fix a house_?” That was the kind of nonsense you saw on reality shows.

“I spent a month at a shack without running water once,” 23 replied with a grimace. “It seemed like a lark at the time, but the agency removed me as soon as they found out. Creative energy can perform minor overall maintenance, not install pipes and run sewage lines.”

Erik chuckled a little. “I’ll remember that. We definitely have running water.” He had not forgotten 23’s question; of course the agency had asked the same thing many times, and he had always given a safe answer, with a ring of sincerity to it. Improved health, enjoying the creative output, someone pleasant to spend time with. But 23 was right, it was a big commitment, too big to be so vague about. “I was engaged to someone, and we broke up,” Erik found himself saying. The memories weighed him down, but no longer stabbed at him. “I miss having someone at home, waiting for me. I _don’t_ miss being dragged to social obligations and arguing about our future,” he added forthrightly. “Regular sex would be nice, too.”

23 grinned slowly. “But why a creative companion?” he persisted. “Someone like you”—his eyes flickered up and down Erik in a way that made him think he agreed with the sex comment—“could find any number of people willing to fill that role, and much cheaper.”

Erik grimaced at the thought. “Someone who can’t wait for me to leave, so they can grab my credit card and spend all day shopping and causing drama?” he scoffed. “No. I like the idea of someone sitting at home being productive somehow. Doing what they enjoy. That I can provide that for them.” The way 23 was looking at him, Erik had just made all his dreams come true, and the intensity was slightly unnerving. “Also I’m expecting to look _at least_ fifteen years younger by the end,” he added seriously, and 23 laughed.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he claimed. Their eyes lingered on each other.

Erik was still expecting something to go horribly wrong, for the boy to shy away at the last minute, or tip over the edge to neurosis, or something else that would kill the hopeful beat of his heart. He realized now that he’d _never_ expected this to work, just assumed he’d be going home empty-handed—maybe Emma would nag him to attend another party or two, and then he’d just give up and throw himself back into his work, until his staff staged another intervention.

Rather bleak future he’d given himself, he saw now, as he looked into 23’s beautiful blue eyes and pictured them staring back at him from across the table, on the couch, in bed. He leaned a little closer, eyes flickering down to his red lips. “So how do we seal this—”

Voices floated up from elsewhere in the garden, sharp and irritated, and 23 jumped back guiltily. “—hiding out here instead of doing his job, I’ll report him to the director,” someone snapped to someone else. “Bad enough he turned down the Shaw contract with some flimsy excuse, does he think he can afford to be so picky—”

They could only be talking about 23, who hung his head, face flushed with embarrassment, and Erik felt a surge of anger. They were companions, not slaves, and anyone who dealt with them ought to understand better how to nurture them—which did not include pressuring them to accept positions they didn’t feel comfortable with.

The voices, with their continued negative remarks, were approaching the niche where Erik and 23 were otherwise hidden. “Come here,” he said to the boy. Sliding a hand through his hair Erik pulled him closer and bent to brush those red lips with his own.

For a moment 23 hesitated, then his hand slid onto Erik’s thigh, yanking himself closer, and he deepened the kiss, his other hand clutching at Erik’s jacket like he was afraid the man would vanish if not held tight. Erik was engulfed in sensation, heat and sweetness and wet, his other hand on the boy’s hip while he tilted his head to a different angle for better access, a tingle going through him that could be creative energy or just good old-fashioned pheromones. For a long moment he genuinely forgot the impetus for the kiss, and was surprised and irritated when he sensed someone intrude.

Erik broke away, hand dropping to the boy’s shoulder, as he turned to look at the two white-clad facilitators. Their expressions were satisfyingly shocked. Erik stole another glance at 23, whose mussed hair, swollen lips, and contented smile made him look positively debauched. “There you are,” Erik said coolly to the facilitators, before he could get distracted. “I’m ready to set up a contract. You can do that, can’t you?” he prompted when they didn’t react right away. He slid his arm around the boy to indicate he had no intention of being parted from him.

“Uh, yes, of course, sir,” sputtered the one who’d been complaining about 23 earlier. “We can set it up in the office right now if you’d like.”

Erik assumed this was what 23 wanted, but realized he hadn’t actually asked. “What do you think?” he said, looking down at him curled against his shoulder. “You could come home with me tonight.” His heart pounded anew at that idea.

23 opened his mouth to reply but the facilitator cut him off. “I’m sorry, sir, there’s a twenty-four-hour waiting period after signing a contract, before collection can occur,” she informed him.

“ _Really_?” Erik rolled his eyes. “I’m not buying a gun here.”

23 snickered. “I’m much more dangerous,” he quipped. “Yes, I’m ready to sign,” he promised him, eyes shining.

“Good. Let’s do it,” Erik decided, standing and pulling him up.

Now for the next challenge: thinking of his name. Erik had a feeling he’d need to consult Emma for that.


End file.
